Out In The Cold
by Mistress Scribbles
Summary: The future of the Junior Gazette rests on a knife edge, as does Lynda's life. She's trapped on a roof top as a blizzard rages. But she's not the only one who cares about the paper, and not the only one who is left out in the cold. CoLynda friendship & UST
1. Chapter 1

OUT IN THE COLD

(Setting - somewhere around Season 5... sightly AU, perhaps an alternative to There Are Crocodiles.)

-x-

_There is a tower block. It buzzes with light and loud music and laughter. There is a party going on. Trendy Media Types in their thirties dress and dance and drink as though they were teenagers. There aren't any teenagers there. There were, but they're not there any more. Outside, it is snowing. It's not just snowing. It's a blizzard out there, but nobody at the party seems to notice. Nobody at the party seems to notice at all._

_Two people are dying on the roof._

_You can barely see them, under the snow. Some of the snow on top of them is stained a reddish brown. It's blood. The two people don't move. One is slumped, the other is huddling them both together against the onslaught of the snowstorm. There is no sound except the howling of the wind._

_And then there's a voice. A very faint, distant voice._

'_I'm… dre-hee-hee-ming… of a whiiiiiite Christmas…'_

_One of the figures under the snow stirs._

'_Just like the ones I used to kno-howwww…'_

'_Hello…?' says the figure, faintly. 'Hello?'_

'_Where the treetops glisten…'_

_The figure tries to crawl forwards, but struggles to keep the second, slumped figure from collapsing. _

'_Hello? Is someone there?'_

'_And children listen…' The faint voice is fading under the sound of the wind._

'_Please? We're on the roof, we're… she's hurt… she's hurt and I don't know what to…'_

'_To hear…. Sleigh-heigh-heigh-bells in the snow, the snow-howwww…'_

'_Please!' The figure tries to stand, carrying the weight of the second person, but stumbles, first onto its knees and the flat onto its face. 'Don't go!'_

_But the voice is gone. Slowly, painfully, the figure pulls itself and its companion back up into a half seated slump against the low wall of the roof. With clawed, bare fingers it wipes snow from its face, revealing itself to be a young man. He then tries his best to wipe snow from the face of the other figure – a young woman, barely conscious, her eyes rolled back and her head drooping. He regards her with worry. His lips are turning blue, but hers are bluer. He tries to rub her shoulders. She doesn't even respond. After a moment he gives up and just pulls her to him for warmth._

'_I really, really really,' he says, 'hate Christmas.'_

-x-

'How can you hate Christmas? What is there possibly for you to hate?'

'I just don't like it, that's all. Do I have to like everything?' Colin tried to move his Blu Tac model of an elephant in a Wizard's hat away from Spike's curious fingers but was too late.

'But Christmas…' continued Spike, cheerfully rolling the magical elephant out of existence between his palms, 'I mean, it's gaudy, it's tacky and everybody goes crazy buying the most godawful crap that nobody wants. You aughtta love it!'

'Everybody starts playing my game at this time of year, though. For one month a year everyone goes crazy and thinks they're me. And then next thing you know it's Christmas Eve and everything just goes dead for a whole fortnight. It's a disaster.'

Spike began subconsciously making a new Blu Tac model of a naked woman. 'What's wrong with that? It's party season!'

Colin sighed, frowning down at his books. 'Don't remind me.'

Spike looked at the Blu Tac woman critically, then squished her legs together to make a mermaid's tail. 'Still put off Office Parties by your previous track record, huh?'

'I just told you not to remind…' the penny dropped. 'That's what you're doing here, isn't it?'

'It's not that I don't trust you with my woman all alone at a big glamorous party, Colin. It's just…' Spike began making the mermaid's cleavage bigger and pointier. 'It's just that I'd prefer it if I were the one with her. I know I wouldn't have to trust myself to behave. Which is handy, because I'm completely untrustworthy.'

'It's managers and editors only, Spike. They didn't even invite Julie.'

'I'm sure they're allowing Plus Ones. I'm great at being the Plus One.'

'Any other circumstances, Spike, I'd love to. But it really needs to be me.'

'Why?'

Colin closed his ledger. 'What's our turnover, Spike? How is our yield looking? What's our budget like? If one of our shareholders comes up to you and tells you the other publications he's invested in have all folded in the last six months he's concerned about the way things are looking with us, what do you tell him?'

Spike pondered this for a moment. 'That his fly's undone. Then I'd run away.'

Colin shook his head at him.

'Isn't that what you would do?'

'Usually, yes. But that's not going to work this time.'

'Finances looking kinda shaky again, huh?'

'You could describe it like that.' Colin opened the ledger and scowled down at it again. 'Personally, I'd use more swear words.'

'So…' Spike experimented with giving the mermaid a bigger bottom. 'You're gonna be all tied up with getting more funds at this party, huh?'

'So will Lynda, if she doesn't want to spend next year delivering newspapers instead of writing them.'

'You mean she's gonna be crawling to a bunch of creepy old men all night?'

'Not entirely, Spike.' Neither of them had noticed Lynda approaching them. She smiled curtly at her boyfriend and pulled the sticky blue mermaid from his hand. 'Some of them are as young as thirty five.'

Spike leaned back on Colin's desk and smiled at her, folding his arms. 'And that's your idea of fun, is it?'

'No,' replied Lynda and Colin in unison.

'It's called "running a business", Spike.' Lynda rolled the mermaid into a ball. 'Grown up stuff. I wouldn't expect you to understand.'

'Oh, but you're happy for Rain Man here to help you out?'

'I'm still trying to work here!' Exclaimed Colin. 'If you're going to talk about me behind my back, could you at least do it away from my desk? It's very distracting.'

Spike shrugged. 'Yes but there's two of us and that would involve both of us having to move. Why don't you go and work in your office?'

'I can't, there's an Osprey in there.'

Lynda tutted. 'Still?'

'What?' asked Spike, now utterly bewildered.

'It's a long story,' sighed Colin, 'and I can't get rid of it now because it's endangered.'

Lynda drew a breath.

'And no I will not phone the RSPB, Lynda,' interrupted Colin, 'I still don't trust them.'

'Colin, for the last time the RSPB were not founded by Herman Goerring. I don't know where your Grandad got his information from, but he's got it wrong.'

Colin shook his head. 'No respect for the elderly. None whatsoever.'

Lynda crossed her arms. 'You can talk.'

'What?'

'Guys?' attempted Spike,

'Armistice Day,' accused Lynda. '1990.'

'That was an accident!' replied Colin.

'Guys.'

'Five Chelsea Pensioners, Colin,' continued Lynda. 'Five.'

'Guys!' Spike stood up from the desk as the other pair finally looked at him. 'You're

doing it again.'

'What?'

'Speaking in tongues, I don't know…'

Lynda raised her eyebrows. 'You never heard about the Chelsea Pensioners?'

Spike mooched away from the desk. 'It's not just that, Lynda.'

Lynda sighed, plopped the ball of Blu Tac back into Colin's outstretched hand and followed Spike. 'What have I done now?'

'Why is it always another guy that you have to take everywhere with you?'

'What?'

'First it was Kenny, now it's _him_,' whispered Spike. 'All these meetings, functions, conferences… even parties now…'

Lynda rubbed her temples. 'Why are the pretty ones always so stupid?' she sighed. 'Colin's Ad Sales Manager, Newspaper Sales Manager… think of a job to do with the finances of the Junior Gazette and add 'Manager' to it and you've got one of Colin's many titles, although if he ever finds any of that out from you you're dead. Kenny was Assistant Editor. Are you really suggesting that I take you to a board meeting instead of one of them because you happen to look better in a pair of tight trousers?'

'And why have you never taken Julie to any of these meetings since _she_ became Assistant Editor?'

'Julie's not Kenny.'

Spike arched an eyebrow. 'Neither's Colin. You seem to keep forgetting that.'

'So taking Kenny to a party would have been OK, but taking Colin isn't?'

'Kenny's like your brother,' shrugged Spike, 'I could understand you and Kenny. You and Colin… I just… I don't get it, OK? Sometimes I think that the two of you must be talking to each other in your brains or somethin'. I don't like it. I don't like what's going on there.'

'"What's going on"?' Lynda blinked and grinned. 'Thompson, has our relationship really got so bad that I need to tell you that there's nothing going on between me and Colin Mathews? Do you seriously need me to validate that?'

Spike rolled his eyes. 'No. Nobody's _that_ insecure. Just… why don't _we_ have our own secret code words?'

'Angel Delight,' replied Lynda, setting Spike's collar straight.

Spike smirked involuntarily. 'You're filthy.'

'See?' she grinned and gave him a small kiss.

'This had better be a really, really boring party,' said Spike.

'It'll be a bunch of detestable crawlers in ill fitting clothes sucking up to each other,' replied Lynda, 'with Colin and me being just as detestable and crawling and ill fitting as the best of them. It'll be horrific. Believe me, if was anything fun I'd have invited the good looking arm candy.'

'I really hope you're talking about me.'

'Don't worry your pretty little head, Spike.' Lynda settled down to her own desk. 'I wouldn't leave you out in the cold.'

-x-

_The man rolls up a sleeve of the jacket the woman is wearing for a second. There is a sock tied around her forearm. The sock is absolutely sodden with fresh blood._

'_Oh God,' says the man._

_He reaches further up the sleeve and pulls at something underneath. Then he stiffly reaches down to his right foot, pulls off his shoe and his sock, then puts his bare foot back into his shoe. Carefully, he removes the bloodied sock from the woman's arm. Beneath it there is a large gash in the woman's white skin. The man tightly ties the new sock over the wound._

'_I wish I knew first aid,' mutters the man, then 'I wish you'd stop bleeding, Lynda. I'm running out of clothes._

_He rolls the sleeve back down again and settles back to sitting still with the woman._

_Very, very faintly, the woman slurs a few words. _

'_Mmmm drumunnn ver wide crzmzzzzzzz…'_

_The man looks at her. 'I'm glad you heard that too. I thought I might have imagined it. Thought I was going potty…' he pauses to consider this. 'Potti_er_, that is.'_

_There is a longer pause._

'_Maybe we both imagined it,' adds the man. 'Maybe we're both going potty. Maybe none of this is happening at all. Maybe I hit my head back at the newsroom. Maybe we're off to see the Wizard.'_

_There is the sound of a couple laughing, faint and distant like the singing before. The man jumps a little. _

'_Hello?' he calls. 'Hello?' He draws up the little strength that he has to shout again, but his breath is short and his voice cracks. 'HELLO!'_

_Nobody replies. The laughter fades away. The man falls back against the wall again._

'_We should have brought the Osprey,' he tells the woman. 'He could have flown to fetch help.' He pauses for a long time, his breaths growing fast and shallow. He whimpers a little, then, with effort, brings himself back under control._

'_I wish we'd never come, Lynda. I wish we'd never come.'_

-x-

'I wish we'd never come.'

Lynda squeezed herself next to Colin at the bar, irritably.

'Cheer up, Kid. Show these fine people your lovely smile.'

She buried her head in her hands. 'I hate smiling. Isn't that what I pay you to do?'

Colin sipped at his juice. 'I'm just taking five before my mouth drops off…' A tall, silver haired man passing by caught his eye and he span round on his chair, suddenly fixing his face into a sycophantic grin. 'Tony! Hi again! Listen – this…' He grabbed Lynda by the shoulders and turned her to face Tony. '…is the little lady I was talking to you about.'

'Hello…' muttered Lynda, blankly.

'Ah-ha,' said Tony to Lynda's cleavage, 'so you're the famous Lynda Day.'

'Part of her, yes,' replied Lynda, 'although the part that does the talking is up here.'

Tony met eyes with her, flushing slightly.

Colin laughed loudly and nervously. 'Quite the little firecracker, isn't she?'

'Quite,' conceded Tony.

'Oh, I'm a wildcat!' enthused Lynda, sarcastically, 'speaking when I'm not directly addressed, cheating on my diets, not doing the ironing properly, you name it! Sometimes I'm as much as quarter of an hour late bringing the menfolk their coffee because I'm too busy painting my nails, gossiping about Rock Hudson's hair and editing a God Damn newspaper, but I'm just so terribly winsome that this silly sausage here doesn't have the heart to fire me.'

'OK,' beamed Colin, 'well we've certainly all had a lot to drink, and…'

'On the contrary,' interjected tall Tony, 'I don't think I'm anywhere near drunk enough. I'm going to the bar.'

Colin indicated to the bar. 'Well, you certainly came to the right place, Tone. What can I get you?'

Tony fixed them both with a granite expression. 'I'm going to the _other_ bar. It was… interesting to meet you.'

'I'm sure it was,' replied Lynda sweetly as she watched him stalk away. The second he was gone she span furiously to face Colin. '"Firecracker"? We're in the 1990's, Colin. Not a Cary Grant film.'

'Do you have any idea who that was?' hissed Colin.

'Yes. He was a pervert.'

'No, Lynda, he's… well, all right, I'll admit he _was_ a bit of a pervert, but he's also a self made millionaire who's invested hefty amounts in five different independent publications, three of them for the youth market. He already knew about us, Lynda. He was all excited about meeting you!'

'I know he was, Colin,' snapped Lynda, 'I saw his trousers.'

'We need this, Lynda,' sighed Colin. 'Can you please, please be sweet and charming, just for one night?'

Lynda scowled and fidgeted with her cocktail dress, trying to tug her neckline up and hemline down simultaneously. 'It's all right for you, you're not a girl. You don't have to spend all night pretending to be flattered by the pathetic advances of dirty old men.'

Colin rolled his eyes, finishing off his juice. 'Get real, Lynda. This is the Media and I'm nineteen and single. I bet I've probably had to do more flirting so far than you have.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Colin. You can't flirt.'

'Not with people I'm interested in…' began Colin.

He was interrupted by a fat, bald man in his 50s putting his hand on his shoulder.

'Kevin,' slurred the fat man.

'Colin,' corrected Colin, politely.

'No. Brian. I'm Brian. Have I given you my card?'

The fat man produced a business card, which Colin took.

'Yes,' replied Colin, 'but thanks for the spare.'

Fat Brian wrapped his hand around Colin's, still holding his glass.

'Your tiny glass is empty, Kevin. Can I freshen you up at all?'

Colin affected a perfect look of coquettish innocence. 'Brian. Are you trying to get me drunk?'

Brian grinned salaciously at Lynda. 'He's onto me, isn't he? He's been warned about me, hasn't he? Old enough to be his father, I should know better. I'm a bad, bad man, aren't I, Kevin?'

'Don't be daft,' replied 'Kevin', cheerfully.

'Kevin, Kevin, Kevin…' Brian patted Colin's hand and stumbled off. 'Oh to be ten years younger…'

Colin turned to Lynda. 'See?'

Lynda shook her head. 'Why are we doing this, Colin? Why are we hawking ourselves like a couple of cheap tarts? We can't need the money that badly, can we?'

Colin just fiddled with his empty glass.

-x-

'_I'm sorry,' says the man. 'I should have told you before. Then we wouldn't be in this mess.'_

'…_musss…' echoes the woman, thickly. 'S'overrrr.'_

'_Hey. It's not over 'til it's over. I promise, OK Kid? It's not done yet. We're not dead yet.'_

_The wind picks up and swirls around the wall, blowing the snow directly into their faces. Neither of them move._


	2. Chapter 2

OUT IN THE COLD

-x-

Two

-x-

Lynda freshened her lipstick in the mirror of the Ladies', and fiddled self consciously with the neckline of her dress. There were two women chatting with each other from the toilet stalls.

'I heard it was the demon drink,' said one woman with a French accent.

'Are you kidding?' replied another in an inconceivably posh voice. 'No, love. Typical midlife crisis, too much of an eye for the young girls, that's what I heard.'

The French woman giggled. 'So you think that's what his little project was all about, then?'

'Undoubtedly,' replied the posh woman. 'Have you _seen_ his Twinkie editor? She's here tonight, all tits and arse, of course.'

Lynda paused. Were they talking about her?

'I expect she's pretty?' asked the French woman.

'In a budget sort of way,' conceded the posh woman, 'but she's a teenager, and that's all that counts these days I suppose.'

Lynda gave a satisfied. They _were_ talking about her. Excellent! One of the toilets flushed. She dodged into the furthest stall to listen to the rest of their conversation.

'Won't she be getting too old to be cute soon, though?' asked Frenchie.

'Rumour has is that he tried to get rid of her as soon as she left school,' replied the posh woman, 'but she clung on.' The other toilet flushed. 'Still, the word on the street is the she won't be troubling him much longer. Such a risky business, youth journalism.'

'I heard it's unlikely to last the winter,' agreed the French woman.

'That long?' yawned the posh woman. 'I heard tonight it was ready to fold any day now. Frankly it's a miracle it's lasted as long as it has in this climate – they're doing it all bloody wrong. Even the FD's just a kid.'

'Oh, I think I saw him,' interjected the French woman, 'doing the rounds, begging for scraps. He's that one that Brian was letching over.'

'That was him?' The posh woman honked a laugh. 'Jesus, I thought that was someone's son or something!'

Lynda frowned as the hand dryer switched on. Jealousy and underestimation over the Junior Gazette staff's ages was one thing, but… were there really rumours that the paper was about to fold? That couldn't be good when it came to getting new investors.

'Of course,' continued the posh woman, 'you know the big trouble with a youth newspaper is that teenagers just don't read.'

'Most of them can't,' giggled the French woman. The bathroom door opened.

'Ever picked up a copy?' added the posh woman as their voices faded, 'they can't bloody write, either…'

The door closed and their voices disappeared.

Lynda stood against the cubicle door on her own, quietly. Then she let herself out, checked her make-up again and slipped out of the bathroom. She was met by a familiar face the moment she did. The older woman seemed as surprised to bump into her as Lynda was.

'Lynda!'

'Chrissie…' started Lynda.

'I, er…' Chrissie Stuart fumbled, pretending to root through her handbag in order to break eye contact with Lynda. 'I didn't think you'd be here tonight. I mean…'

'Did you come with Kerr?' interrupted Lynda. 'Where is he? I think I'd like a word…'

Chrissie shook her head and met eyes with Lynda again, apologetically. 'I don't think he's coming tonight, Lynda.'

'Why not?'

'I wouldn't know.'

Lynda narrowed her eyes. 'What? Why? What's going on, Chrissie?'

Chrissie sighed. 'I don't know, Lynda. I honestly have no idea what's going on at the Gazette any more. And it's probably not advisable for us to be seen talking, I'm afraid…'

'What are you talking about?'

'You haven't heard…?'

'Heard what?'

Chrissie struggled to find the words to answer her. Lynda scrutinised the journalist's embarrassed expression. Something about it made her heart plummet into her stomach.

'You've jumped ship, haven't you?'

'You're looking at the new Deputy Editor of the Shepperton Advertiser.' Chrissie winced.

'The Advertiser? That comic? But it's…'

'Crap. I know.' Chrissie folded her arms. 'But it's a promotion… sort of. And for the record, Lynda, I only jumped because I couldn't bear to be pushed.'

Lynda struggled to push the furious indignation into a tight ball, safe in her stomach. 'Kerr wouldn't let you go!'

'Kerr would have had no say in it. Haven't you noticed all of the cuts going on? You must have had to make a few yourself to stay afloat over at your title. Advertising's always the first to suffer in a Recession.'

Lynda shook her head, managing a tight little smile. 'We happen to value our staff's loyalty very highly at the Junior Gazette.'

'Everybody always does,' replied Chrissie, 'but you're running a risky business and it's difficult times…' she looked over her shoulder swiftly. 'As I said, it might not be terribly wise for the two of us to been seen chinwagging for too long, under current circumstances…'

Chrissie made a dart for the bathroom, but Lynda managed to block her way for a moment longer.

'What have you heard, Chrissie? What have you heard about my paper?'

Chrissie shook her head, apologetically. 'You know we can't discuss that.' She manoeuvred herself so that Lynda was no longer in her path. 'Goodbye, Lynda. And good luck. With everything.'

-x-

_The man looks up at the sky while the woman slumps her head down towards her lap._

'_Did I see Chrissie Stuart there tonight?' mumbles the man at length. 'She's good, isn't she, Lynda? She'll work out we've gone missing before long. She'll work it out.'_

_There is a long pause before the man looks back down at the unmoving woman._

'_Wouldn't you say?'_

_Still the woman doesn't move. The man shakes her a little but she doesn't react._

'_Lynda?'_

_He shakes her harder and she moans a little._

'_Come on, Kid,' he breathes, 'just keep it together a little bit longer, will you? Just a little bit longer. For me?'_

_He contemplates this._

'_All right, not for me, then. For… for the others. Who's going to tell Julie her hair looks stupid if you're not around, eh? Who's going to phone Kenny in the middle of the night to settle an argument about what year they stopped issuing one pound notes? Who's going to blow claxon horns at Frazz when he falls asleep in the office? What about your poor Mum? What about Spike, Lynda? What about Spike, eh?'_

_The woman stirs a little. Her whisper is almost silent. 'Spike…'_

'_What about poor old Spike?' continues the man. 'He'll always be there, paper or no paper. Don't give up just because of the paper, Lynda. Please.'_

-x-

Lynda didn't stop moving when she found Colin. She grabbed the top of his arm and carried on marching towards a secluded corner, forcing him to walk with her.

'We're not going home,' spluttered Colin, 'not yet we can't, anyway…'

'Colin,' hissed Lynda, 'I know that the irony of asking this of you of all people is enormous, I know that I will almost regret doing so the moment I do, but this is my job we're talking about, so away we go. Tell me, Colin. Honestly. _Honestly_. How bad is it? The money, I mean. Look me in the eye and tell me straight for once.'

She released his arms and stared at him, waiting.

Colin opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then tried grinning at her, then pretended to be fascinated by something just behind Lynda's right ear.

Still Lynda watched him.

Finally he sighed, and looked down at his thumbnail. 'It's bad.'

'It's always bad. Define "bad".'

'We need to increase weekly revenues by another 20… 25...' Colin trailed off.

'Or what?' prompted Lynda.

Colin tried to catch the eye of a passing waitress. Lynda grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged him back into the conversation.

'Or what?' Lynda reiterated. 'What if we keep going as we have been?'

Colin paused for a moment. 'Then we sink.'

'Sink? Are we talking months here? Weeks?'

'It depends.'

Lynda arched an eyebrow. 'Go on.'

'If we keep doing everything just the way we were, same incomings, same outgoings, we won't…' Colin scratched his head, nervously. 'We won't make it another four editions.'

'Four weeks?' Lynda paled. 'A month?' Her shock turned to rage almost instantly. 'Why didn't you tell me about this you stupid bloody…' with effort she brought her voice under control, although her fists bunched so tightly that her knuckles turned white. 'We need to do something, then. We'll have to make cutbacks.'

'But we hate making cutbacks…'

'I _know_ we do!'

'Besides,' added Colin, 'even if we cut right back, try to get by on a skeleton staff, it… doesn't look likely. The money's just not out there any more.'

Lynda fell into silence. She stared furiously at him for what felt like a miserable eternity, flexing and clenching her fingers. Then she turned sharply from him and, without another word, swiftly walked away.

'Lynda? Lynda!'

Colin chewed his lip. She'd walked off. He was in the clear, at least for the time being. He could just go back to the task in hand and forget all about the consequences until they caught up with him again.

He _could_. Only…

Suddenly he realised that he was already chasing after her. 'Lynda, wait!'

But Lynda wouldn't wait. She gave him a brief, angry glance over her shoulder and then disappeared into a crowd. Colin pushed through them just in time to see the door to the fire escape slam shut. The other revellers were far too wrapped up in themselves to notice him, so he pushed the door halfway and slipped through.

Lynda was sitting on the stairs, her head buried in her hands. Colin silently leaned against the wall and took a deep breath, watching her. Was she crying? Had something that he had said made Lynda Day actually _cry_? That was rare – very rare. It usually took some guy to put a bullet through his brain to get her to do that. A long time ago he would have taken considerable pride in that. But now all he felt was shame. That terrible blackness that fidgeted in his brain and slunk in his belly so often these days. He could no longer keep it down the way he had done so well when he was a kid. He wondered why that was.

'Lynda…' he attempted again.

Lynda looked up at him, her eyes dry but dark with rage. 'Get lost, Colin,' she snapped, getting to her feet and climbing the staircase away from him, 'preferably forever.'

He ignored her warning and followed her up the stairs.

'It's not as if I haven't been trying, Lynda! I mean, what do you think I've been doing at the office every day for the last couple of months?'

'God knows,' yelled down Lynda, 'God knows what you do with the time I pay you for. But I always turned a blind eye because somehow it still worked.'

'A blind eye – that's just it, isn't it?' Colin grabbed the banister and used it to swing himself round the 180 degrees to the next flight of stairs. 'You don't see, do you? Has it escaped your attention that there happens to be a massive Recession right now? What about the fact that I haven't worked on anything except the paper for nearly half a year? Do you ever so much as look at what I do? I shouldn't have to tell you we're in trouble so late in the day, Lynda. You should already know.'

Lynda reached the fire escape at the top of the stairs. She stopped and turned to him. 'Don't give me that crap. You hide all these things from me. You always have.'

Since she had stopped, he ground to a halt himself, halfway up the last flight of stairs, keeping his distance. 'I don't. Not for years. Not properly, anyway. There's no point, because unless it's something you really want to know, you can never be bothered to look…'

Before he could finish, she walloped the bar of the fire door, stormed through it and slammed it behind her. Again, Colin momentarily considered leaving her to sulk on her own and going back down to the job in hand at the party, and yet again he realised too late that he was already following her. He pushed against the heavy door and was hit by a wave of freezing wind and snow. The moment that he stepped outside he felt all the warmth drain from his body, and that was in a suit. Lynda, in only a tiny cocktail dress was shivering terribly, but still had an expression of utter defiance etched on her face.

'Oh for God's sake… would you just leave me alone for five bloody minutes?'

Colin stepped a small way towards her, his hands tucked beneath his folded arms for warmth. 'You're being stupid, Lynda. You'll freeze up here.'

'I just want some fresh air and a bit of peace and quiet. Will you leave me be?'

Colin said nothing but stayed rooted to the spot, and blew into his cupped hands.

'Seriously, Colin. Who died and made you Kenny?'

Colin just snorted a small laugh.

Lynda rubbed her bare arms. 'At least Kenny would go and get me a coat so I wouldn't die of pneumonia.'

'I'm not fetching your coat. Come back inside.'

They fell into a silent stalemate. Stinging snow whipped around them both as they tried to stare each other down. It was Colin who crumbled first, turning from her.

'We don't have time for this,' he muttered. 'I'll be downstairs.'

'What's the point?' asked Lynda, bitterly. 'If we're dead in the water, what's the point of going back down there?'

Colin had no answer.

'You think we still have a chance,' added Lynda, 'don't you? That's why we're here.'

'It's not much of a chance,' shrugged Colin.

Lynda pondered this for a second. 'I'll come in, Colin. But you've got to promise me. Absolutely promise me. And not a Hustler Colin Promise, they're not worth the breath you draw to make them. I want a proper promise. From you. I know you're in there, somewhere.'

'I don't like the sound of this…' muttered Colin.

'I'll put in the work too,' continued Lynda, 'and I'll make the cuts that need to be made. That's my side of the bargain. And I won't stop until the paper's back on its feet, you know I won't. I need you to match that.'

'Lynda…'

Lynda scowled at him, seriously. 'I need you to promise that you won't stop either. Promise you'll help me save it.'

'I don't know what else I can do, Lynda. I've already been putting my…'

'Just promise.'

'I can't promise I'll save the paper. I can try my best, but that's what I've already been doing.'

Lynda didn't budge. 'Fine. See you later.'

'Lynda…'

'I said, I'll see you later.'

Colin rolled his eyes and trudged back to the fire escape door. It had blown shut, so he groped for a handle. His hand hit a flat wall of metal. He stared at it. There was no handle on the outside, just a chubb lock. Already knowing that it didn't open inwards, he tried pushing at the freezing door. It didn't budge.

An annoyed female voice rose up behind him. 'What now?'

-x-

_The two figures have grown still again. The man breaks the silence by coughing unhealthily. The woman is now completely limp on his shoulder. The patch of rusty brown snow on her arm is growing bigger._

'_For what it's worth,' says the man, 'I promise, OK? I won't stop. I'll find a way of saving it, somehow. And if not… well, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere.'_

_The woman doesn't reply._


	3. Chapter 3

OUT IN THE COLD

-x-

Chapter 3

-x-

'It won't open.'

'What?'

'The door won't open. I can't get back in.'

Lynda marched across the snow covered roof and pushed him out of the way of the door. 'That's ridiculous. Let me try.' She pushed at the door. 'There's no handle!'

'I know.'

'But that's stupid!'

'This door's only supposed to be an emergency escape,' replied Colin.

'There would have been signs.'

'I think there were, Lynda.'

'Well then, we should have triggered the fire alarm when we opened it or something,' snapped Lynda.

'I suppose…'

'But I don't hear any bells ringing, can you?'

'Well, what if the alarm's out of order?'

Lynda rolled her eyes. 'Don't be ridiculous, Colin. This is a place of business.'

'So's our office,' replied Colin, 'but when's the last time you checked _our_ fire alarm?'

Lynda pushed fruitlessly at the door again. 'Spike set it off…'

'Years ago,' added Colin.

Lynda stood back, folding her arms against the cold again. 'Why are we talking about the Junior Gazette's Fire Safety record?'

'I'm just saying, it's possible the people here have overlooked this door, safety wise.'

'In which case,' continued Lynda, 'we'd be stuck up here, and nobody would be any the wiser.'

'Yep.'

Lynda thought for a moment. 'Got your mobile?'

'Sure,' replied Colin. 'In my coat pocket, which is in the cloakroom, which is inside.'

'Mine too. I'd have kept it in my handbag, only _somebody_ said the handbag looked like it belonged to a pensioner so I didn't bring it.'

Colin's eyebrows shot up, indignantly. 'That wasn't me, that was Spike! I happen to like your big brown handbag. It reminds me of my Nana.'

'We could bang on the door and call for help,' added Lynda.

'And I'm sure we'll be heard through two heavy doors, three floors of concrete stairs and Whitney Houston at full volume.'

'Cheerful tonight, aren't you, Colin?'

Colin shrugged, rubbing his arms. 'What are we going to do?'

Lynda stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes, irritably. 'Miserable _and_ defeatist. Fantastic. This is hardly the most helpful of times for you to get into one of your Moods.'

'Moods…?' Colin followed Lynda as she turned and trudged across the roof. 'I don't get Moods!'

'You bloody do, you know. One minute you'll be all Colin and the next thing we know you'll be all…' She waved a dismissive hand behind her in his general direction. 'All this. Misery and defeatism. You've been doing it more and more for months now, it's like you've waited until you start pushing 20 to get through all your Teenaged Sulking in one big lump. And you say I never notice anything.'

Colin stopped in his tracks, dumbstruck, unsure whether he was embarrassed or delighted that she'd noticed his recently blackening moods. 'Lynda, I…'

Lynda turned to him slightly, pointing towards a high wire fence and smiling triumphantly. 'There's a perfectly good fire escape on the other side of that fence. See?'

He followed her pointed finger. Indeed there was. The fence was a good six feet but made of climbable wire mesh, and seemed to separate parts of the building belonging to different companies. On the other side of the fence, an outside staircase was distinguishable amongst the snow.

Lynda reached up as high as she could, grasping her fingers through the mesh just beneath the top of the fence. 'Give me a leg-up, then.' She shot him an impish grin. 'Don't worry, I won't leave without you.'

Colin laced his fingers together for her foot. 'Believe it or not, I have had some practice at escaping over fences on my own.'

'You don't say.' Lynda stepped onto his interlocked hands and fitted her other foot into the wire of the fence as he hoisted her up to waist height. 'Don't look up my skirt.'

Colin looked at his shoes, suddenly. 'I wasn't looking up your…'

That's when Lynda screamed. Colin instinctively grabbed at the foot he still had in his hands but she twisted sideways as she fell, leaving him holding an empty shoe. He didn't see her land, but he heard the sound that she made. It was all wrong. It wasn't the soft, crinkly thud of somebody falling through a layer of snow onto a hard surface. It was more organic than that. It was… _squelchier_ than that. And then Lynda screamed again, only the first scream had been a harsh, shocked cry and the second one was a howl, a long, unnatural howl of pain. He looked down, still holding her shoe.

He thought about Snow White. He had used to read his sister Katie stories when she was much smaller and scared at night, and since Snow White was Katie's favourite. All the other Fairy Book Princesses had Golden locks, but Snow White was dark like the Mathews siblings, and Katie had always loved the beginning of the story – that once there was a Queen who had cut her finger sewing on a winter's day, and when the blood fell on the snow against the ebony windowsill the Queen had thought it was beautiful and wished for a child who was as white as snow, as red as blood, as black as ebony. For a moment, Colin was trapped between the picture in the storybook and the reality in front of him. Her dark dress and hair as she lay where she had fallen, the crisp white of the snow and the crimson blood. The blood, the blood, the gash across her hand and the growing puddle of dark red around her forearm. In that moment he was incapable of noticing anything practical - not the razor wire at the top of the fence nor the broken glass beneath the snow where Lynda had fallen. Not that she was still screaming but not moving. Not that the wind had picked up again. All he could do was look at her and think of Snow White and contemplate the beauty that that Queen had seen when she had cut her finger. How very beautiful it was, and how very terrible.

'Oh God!' screamed Snow White, 'My arm! My arm! Do something!'

He did something. He dropped the shoe.

-x-

'_I wish Spike was here,' says the man, eventually, 'instead of me.'_

'…_spk…' whispers the woman._

'_And I know what you're thinking,' continues the man, oblivious to the woman, 'but I don't mean it like that. What I mean is that if he were here and not me neither of us would be in this mess. He would never have let you storm off through a faulty fire escape onto a roof in the middle of a blizzard. And he certainly wouldn't have let you climb a razor wire topped fence. That's the sort of thing that only happens to people when they go out for an evening with _me_. If he'd have gone with you like he asked me, you two could have danced, laughed, schmoozed, charmed the pants off a wealthy investor, solved a couple of mysteries and eaten your body weight in bite-sized snacks on cocktail sticks, all without leaving the warm and the dry. And I could have spent tonight at home with the central heating turned up… ready meal for one… fallen asleep on the sofa watching Channel 4 in the hope of catching a flash of nipple…'_

_The man sighs a long, deep sigh and grinds the back of his head against the wall._

'_And for the record,' he adds, 'I am not "Sulking" or "Being Moody". But also for the record, I'm glad you noticed. I thought if anyone would, it would be you, considering…'_

_He glances at her. 'You don't really think it's just a phase, do you? It's not just that they've been coming on faster and easier lately. When they come, they're thicker and blacker. It's like… treacle… except that it's not. With Cindy, it's like it was watered down, it was still runny, I could still do stuff. The day after I was shot… well, you saw the state I was in. Couldn't sit up, couldn't talk, couldn't stop throwing up - that's the worst it's been so far. It was like trying to run through toffee. And when the psychiatrist came to see me I stuck to your story, and went on about how upset I was about my old mate Donald, so the Doctor just prescribed sleeping pills and didn't ask any more questions. I'm starting to think that might have been a mistake. Because it's been coming back, sometimes for no reason. Part of it's been the paper, sure. I don't want the paper to die either. It's my life too these days. But it's not just that…'_

_The woman's head rolls off his shoulder but he catches it and props her up again._

'_Sorry,' he says, 'am I boring you? I'm just trying to… you know… just so that you know that you're not the only one round here with problems, that's all.'_

_The woman doesn't respond. The man smoothes her hair away from her face._

'_You're no help at all, Lynda Day, you know that?'_

-x-

'You're no help at all, Colin Mathews, you know that?'

'Oh Christ!'

Reality reasserted itself around Colin suddenly. He knelt down beside her. 'Are you OK?'

Lynda didn't even bother telling him what a stupid question that was. She started crying.

Very, very gingerly, Colin took her bleeding arm and lifted it up out of the broken glass. Lynda screamed in agony again and punched her good fist down on his thigh as fresh blood spurted in a thick stream from the wound.

'Christ…' breathed Colin, watching it, 'Jesus Christ…'

'I don't think He's coming to help,' spat Lynda through clenched teeth, 'no matter how many times you call Him.'

'OK… OK…' trying his best to hold back a wave of nausea, Colin propped her bleeding arm up on his shoulder and started undoing his tie. 'We're going to sue the Hell out of these morons, Lynda.'

'What?!?' Lynda's voice was tight with pain. 'Who thinks about suing at a time like this?'

'Faulty fire alarm,' listed Colin as he used his tie as a tourniquet around Lynda's arm, 'death trap fire exit, the only working fire escape the other side of a fence with hidden razor wire at the top and broken glass at the bottom. They probably put the fence up because they were worried about thieves climbing up the proper fire escape next door and getting in through the roof, the stupid idiots. Putting profit before public safety.' Satisfied that the tourniquet was tied tightly enough around the top of Lynda's arm, Colin removed a sock and used it as a rudimentary bandage around the glass wound. 'Well, I'll teach them to do that, you'll see.'

'Yes, I imagine you probably could teach them a lesson or two in how to _really_ put profit before public safety,' replied Lynda with a grim smile. 'There's no bear traps up here, for starters.'

'One stupid bear trap and I never hear the end of it…' muttered Colin, tying off the sock-bandage.

'Hmm.' Lynda looked down at Colin's handiwork. 'I always thought you'd lied when you said you were going on that First Aid course.'

'What made you think that?'

'You came back with a sun tan. We all assumed you'd just gone on Holiday to Spain or something.'

'Holiday? Spain?' Colin snorted a laugh. 'Lynda, _please_. It was Business and it was Paraguay.' He met eyes with her. 'Loooooong story, don't ask. Spain. Honestly. What is there in Spain?' He took off his jacket and passed it to her. 'You've lost a lot of blood, you need to keep as warm as possible. Spain, I ask you.'

Lynda accepted the jacket and put it on, carefully threading her sore arm through the sleeve. 'So how do you know about tourniquets and stuff, then?'

Colin shrugged. 'Been in a fair few A&E waiting rooms in my time.'

'I can believe that.'

The wind and snow howled around them both. Colin, now down to a shirt and trousers, sucked in through his teeth like somebody eating a lemon as he helped Lynda up.

'It's cold.'

Lynda raised her eyebrows, weakly. 'Can't say I'd noticed.'

Colin started jiggling from one foot to the other. 'You should find somewhere sheltered and rest there. Keep your arm up. I'm going to see if I can find another way down.'

He turned from her and barely made ten steps away before he heard the crunch of her sinking back into the snow.

'Lynda?' He span around and ran back to her. She was on her hands and knees, shaking, her head drooped. He slung her good arm around his shoulder and pulled her upright again. It was obvious that she could no longer support her own weight. Still, she did her best to meet his eyes levelly.

'I'm all right,' she lied.

He walked her as well as he could towards a low wall that could shelter her, but her feet dragged and her head started to fall forwards.

'Let me guess,' said Colin as they walked, 'you're starting to feel numb, you know your arm should really hurt but it doesn't feel as bad as it aught to, everything's going all twirly?'

'…twirly…' agreed Lynda.

Colin sat down with her against the wall, watching her. 'You can still hear me though, right?'

Lynda nodded. 'Getting a bit tired, though.'

'Well,' replied Colin, 'try to wake up.'

'Mmmmffff.'

'If I go and look for another way down, do you promise you'll stay awake?'

'Mmmm…;

Colin shook her. 'Lynda!'

Lynda's head snapped up. 'What's happening?'

'I'm just going to…' Colin watched Lynda for a second, and then settled down next to her. 'I'm just going to sit here with you for a bit.'

'We need to get back down,' murmured Lynda.

'I know.'

'We need to think of something.'

'_I'll_ think of something,' he replied.

He sat, and tried to think.

_He sits, and tries to think._

'_I'll think of something,' he mutters again._


	4. Chapter 4

OUT IN THE COLD

-x-

Four

-x-

_Cold. That's all there is left now – the sensation of being cold. The cold stings, and yet it numbs. It is everywhere, it invades even on the core of their bodies. Even the spring of blood on her arm is no longer hot. The wind swirls the snow around them, but they are utterly still. The snow sticks down their hair and the few clothes that they have._

_They have both stopped talking._

_They have both given up._

_But then, there is yet another, distant voice._

'Vive la vent, vive la vent, vive la vent d'Hiver…'

Colin started back into the real world.

'Hello?' he croaked, yet again.

'Boules de neige et jour de l'an et bon anne Grandmere, Oh!'

Somehow, the singing seemed to be getting closer, rather than further away. Painfully, he struggled to his feet and staggered towards the voice. He heard Lynda flop limply into the snow as he left her, but this time he didn't go back straight away. It had been well over an hour since he'd last heard another voice and the desperation to contact somebody – anybody – had overtaken his drive to keep his fallen editor sheltered. It didn't occur to him that the voice was not singing in English and that he couldn't speak French.

'Hello?' He cried again and then, with an appalling Estuary accent, 'Bonjour?'

There was a sickening silence. Colin took a couple of shallow, panicky breaths. After what seemed like an eternity, the distant voice laughed merrily.

'Bonsoir, Monseuir Plafond… Parlez-vous Francais?'

'Erm…' Colin staggered towards the sound of the voice, struggling to remember his very basic schooling in French. 'Je suis sur la… la roof… et… il neige… erm… fetchez votre veste pour ma amie…'

'Shall we speak in English, Mister Ceiling Man?' giggled the voice, 'I think I speak it better than you do French.'

'We need help,' he babbled, still searching for the source of the voice through the raging snow, 'we're on the roof.'

'You want me to come up to the roof?' asked the French voice.

'Yes… no! Don't let the Fire Escape close behind you, or you'll end up trapped too. Just open the door… or bring help…' Colin thought for a second. 'Actually, you'd better call us an ambulance.'

'OK, Ceiling Man,' mocked the voice, 'you're an ambulance.'

The voice started to laugh again. Colin stopped in his tracks. There it was. It had been the other side of the Fire Exit all the time, so neither of them had seen it. The voices were coming up through a vent. It was much, much too small for either himself or Lynda to fit through, but there was one thing about it apart from the voice which filled him with a sudden burst of hope – there was no snow whatsoever around the vent. He hurried towards it, and the laughter became louder.

'Listen!' he yelled, 'I'm serious!'

The voice just kept laughing. He reached the vent. The air coming from it was deliciously warm. He held his blueing hands out in front of it instinctively. Heat! Heat! He'd almost forgotten what warmth felt like!

'I'm… there's been an accident. We need an ambulance. Are you listening to me?'

'Oh yes,' mocked the voice, 'we are very serious, yes?'

_Lynda…_ He desperately didn't want to leave the stream of warm air, and wanted to leave the French voice to its own devices even less, but he was very aware of how much Lynda needed the air vent's heat. It took considerable willpower to wrench himself away, back into the bitterly cold night again.

'Stay there,' he ordered the voice, 'I'm coming back in a second.'

'Where are you going, Ceiling Man?' called the voice.

'I need to get my friend.' He kept his face turned towards the direction of the voice and backed up, as fast as he could, to where Lynda was lying.

'Oh, you have a little friend? How sweet!'

'She's hurt.' Colin tripped on something and fell backwards into the snow. Lynda was only a few yards away so he didn't bother to get back to his feet but crawled the rest of the distance to where she was lying.

'She?' asked the voice. 'Ceiling Man, do you have a little ceiling girlfriend?'

'She's not my girlfriend…' he replied, automatically.

'Ah, but you wish she was, yes, Ceiling Man? In your lonely little ceiling world you wish for a ceiling girlfriend?'

Colin didn't dignify that with a reply. He felt for Lynda's pulse, and tried to convince himself that he wasn't checking in the right place when he couldn't find it. Her skin was horribly cold. He put an ear to her lips. She was still breathing. Just.

'Is she very beautiful, your friend?'

Colin let out a small snort as he hoisted her weight onto his shoulder and started to drag her over to the vent. She was bedraggled, and grey with cold, trailing blood and utterly limp, her magnificent fire down to its last embers. But yes, said a small voice very deep down inside of him, even like this she was still very beautiful.

'Ceiling Man?'

'Coming,' he grunted.

'What are you doing, Helene?' snapped a second, haughtier voice. 'Get down off that chair!'

'There's a man in the ceiling who can't speak French,' explained the French woman. 'He wants an ambulance for his friend who isn't his girlfriend even though she is beautiful…'

'Helene,' sighed the second woman, 'you're drunk. Come on.'

'No!' Shouted Colin, 'No, we're really up here. Please, please fetch…'

'Oh God,' sighed the second voice, 'it's just those bloody kids of Kerr's mucking about. Come along, Helene.'

'But he's my friend,' whined the French woman.

'Yes!' panicked Colin, 'Yes, we're all friends here now. Helene. Helene, is that your name, Kid? Please, Helene. Call an ambulance. Fetch help. We're stuck up here.'

'Come on, Helene,' said the second voice. 'Taxi's waiting. The party's over anyway.'

'No! No, Helene, are you listening…?' There was no answer. 'Helene? Are you there?' He waited a good minute as he propped Lynda as well as he could in front of the warmer air of the vent, but the voices never replied.

Eventually, just to break the silence, he spoke again.

'Typical, eh? Get into a conversation with a nice sounding girl at a party and she just thinks you're her imaginary friend in the ceiling and gets whisked away before you can so much as exchange phone numbers. I don't know. Women.'

There was another long pause. Lynda started to slide down through Colin's grasp so he hoisted her up again.

'I think she was jealous of you, though,' Colin added. 'Listen, I tried to set the record straight, but she wasn't listening. It's not like I was deliberately giving her the impression you and me were… You Know… Don't worry, I haven't forgotten what you promised you'd do to me if I ever made anyone think that was the case. And yes, I know that right now this does technically count as physical contact, but I figured I just wouldn't tell you about this bit. I can't imagine you'd be grateful, even though it's nice and warm over here and really cold back where you were. You'd probably make me draw diagrams of every part of you I dared lay my filthy hands on while you were unconscious.'

He fell silent again for a few minutes before he spoke again.

'Funny,' he said, randomly, then paused for a while.

'Funny that we ended up here because you were angry about things I hadn't told you,' he added, 'and now here I am talking and talking and you're not listening. That's your trouble though, isn't it? You don't listen unless there's something you want to find out.'

He paused again.

'When you visited me, after I'd been shot,' he said, 'you never did ask me why I went back in, did y…'

Since fell – real silence. A distant hum that he hadn't even registered before stopped humming suddenly.

'No…' he breathed. He remembered the words of the snooty woman. The party was over. They were all going home. They would be turning off the heating. He waved his hand in front of the vent. The stream of air issuing from it was much weaker and barely lukewarm.

'No, no, no…'

The airstream diminished to a thin trickle, then stopped altogether. Colin, still propping Lynda up against the now cold vent, fought a brief, losing battle against a series of hard, shallow breaths until they were just noisy gasps, which felt as though they brought no oxygen into his body whatsoever. The roaring of his blood in his ears became unbearably loud. The world began to turn grey. It was only on feeling the weight of Lynda's body slumping over his legs that he realised he must have collapsed.

'No good,' the voice in his head told him over and over again. 'You couldn't do it. No good, no good, no good.'

The grey turned into blackness – that thick, thick sticky blackness that he had become so well acquainted to came flooding in to cover him completely.

-x-

'_Oh my God.'_

'_Keep that door propped open, make sure it doesn't slam shut.'_

_Faint voices dance on the surface of the treacle._

'_Colin? Lynda! Can you hear me?'_

'_Jesus. Look at her arm. How long have they been up here? They're both frozen stiff!'_

'_Call an Ambulance.'_

'_I'm on it, Chrissie.'_

'_Oh God. Neither of them are waking up. Come on, Lynda. Come on!'_

'_What do you suppose happened?'_

'_I really don't know. I just heard someone leaving saying that "those kids of Kerr's were mucking about on the roof" and I knew that wasn't like Lynda…'_

'_And this is her boyfriend, is it?'_

'_Not unless the world's gone completely mad.'_

'_He gave her his jacket. And his tie, look.'_

'_It might have saved her life. Might have cost him his. Maybe the world has gone mad after all. Put your coat over him, for God's sake, he's turned blue. Where's that Ambulance…?'_

_There are sirens, but they are so distant they barely register. Then there is nothing._

-x-

'Someone here to see you, Lynda.'

Lynda raised her head weakly towards the nurse. 'Spike?'

'Hello.' The young man who sat himself down next to her was wearing hospital robes and a dressing gown, and wasn't Spike.

'Oh. It's you.'

'I heard you were awake,' explained Colin, 'and I don't have as far to go to visit you as Spike – I'm only two wards down.' Colin stole a few grapes from her bedside table. 'How's your arm?'

'It hurts.'

'Two days ago they were almost positive you were going to lose it.'

'Doesn't stop it hurting, though.' Lynda glanced at Colin. 'I see you escaped unscathed yet again.'

'12 hours unconscious,' listed Colin, 'minor hypothermia and frostbite, I've still got no feeling in my fingertips… and then there's the…'

'My arm was nearly off!'

'I didn't know it was a competition.'

Lynda gave up on that tack and lay back in her bed. 'How much do remember of that night?'

'I think I passed out just before we were found.' Colin paused. 'Have… have you been told what happened?'

Lynda nodded. 'Chrissie Stewart rescued us, didn't she?'

'Yes, but…'

'I hope you've sent her a Thank you.'

Colin sighed. 'I've been busy. My cousin's girlfriend's brother works at a Legal firm, specialises in suing companies for personal injuries. He reckons it's such a sure thing, what with the fire door and the razor wire that we won't even have to take it to court, they're close to settling already. Reckons we should get at least 20 grand.'

'That's what you've been doing with your time, Colin? Phoning round the Ambulance Chasers?'

'Lynda, the only reason we even went to that stupid party in the first place was to get more funds. Funds we badly needed.'

'So you think you can wrangle us a one-off payment,' huffed Lynda, 'a sticking plaster over an axe wound.'

'It'll give us a lot more time to sort out our cashflow problems,' replied Colin, 'although I was going to wait until I was out of Hospital and back in clothes that fasten all the way around to start working on that…'

'I thought you were ready to give up,' retorted Lynda.

'Not this time, Kid. After all, I promised.'

'Did you?'

'You don't remember?'

Lynda's eyes lit up. 'About time, too!'

'Well…' began Colin with a false modesty, before he realised that she was looking past him at the corridor beyond.

'Typical Lynda Day,' came the American voice from behind him, 'I spend three days at a dutiful vigil by your bedside and the minute the nurses order me to go home and get a bit of sleep, you decide to wake up.'

'Don't lie, Thompson,' replied Lynda, hiding a grin, 'I know full well you've spent the entirety of my coma with your little black book seeing how many Sympathy Dates you can muster.'

'How did you know about my little black book?' Spike vaulted over the back of a second chair, sliding down into it without breaking his stride or dropping the giant box of chocolates under his arm. 'Hey, Colin' he added as an afterthought, 'fingers still numb?'

'Why is everyone so obsessed with Colin's fingers when my arm nearly fell off?' snapped Lynda. 'Those chocolates had better be for me.'

'Early Christmas present,' smiled Spike, 'but you'd better eat them slowly. I can't be seen out with you if you get fat.' He leaned over and kissed her, oblivious to his audience.

Colin tried killing time before his friends were free to speak again by pinching the ends of his fingers. Then he checked the pockets of his dressing gown, found what appeared to be a washed five pound note, unpeeled it, discovered it was only a green tissue, straightened the edge of Lynda's blanket and stole a few more grapes. After that he realised he was beginning to feel like a bit of a gooseberry.

'I'm going to… I'll just…' Colin stood up, searching for an escape excuse.

Spike broke out of the kiss. 'Wasn't that Shyster Lawyer gonna come and see you about the case today, Colin? You don't wanna Welsh on a meeting with a Lawyer, they'll probably sue you for breach of contract.'

Colin blinked. 'Right. Of course. Well, we've got money to make. Lots and lots of money…'

He shuffled off towards his own ward, leaving Spike and Lynda alone in peace. Spike took her hand.

'Way to scare the living Hell outta me, Boss.'

'I just didn't want your life to get too boring.'

'I'm glad they saved your arm.' Spike kissed the back of her hand. 'I love this arm. They reckon if the two of you hadn't worked out how to minimise blood loss with that tourniquet it'd have been a gonner for sure. So would the rest of you, probably.'

'That was Colin's idea…' muttered Lynda. 'Did he seem all right to you just now?'

'He's just fine.' Spike kissed her wrist. 'That guy's made of rubber, he just comes bouncing back. And now he gets to sue a big company for thousands and thousands of pounds. That's like his version of Heaven. He's doing great.'

-x-

_In the ward there is a man in a suit, waiting. The patient that he's there to see is only a few yards away, down the corridor. The walk should only take a few seconds. But the patient can barely move. There is nothing wrong with his legs but walking has suddenly become almost impossible. He keeps himself upright with a hand on the wall and tries to will himself to walk through the thick treacle that has surrounded him._

'_Come on,' he tells himself, (no good, no good) 'money to make, lots and lots and lots (no good). Come on (no good).'_

'_Come on.'_

-x-

THE END


End file.
